Another Big Win For Putin!!!
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88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
All those cameras and no suspects on Nemtsov's death
All those cameras and no suspects on Nemtsov's death
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
more like kick-backs
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russian scientists trapped by polar bears, government is sending flares to scare them away.
Flares will arrive in a month.
Flares will arrive in a month.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Opinion: These 4 charts show why Trump is an idiot about Putin
Published: Sept 12, 2016 3:32 p.m. ET
Strong leaders don’t preside over economic collapses, Donald
By
TIMMULLANEY
WRITER
Getty Images
What a bromance!
One of the problems of political journalism circa 2016 is deciding which of Donald Trump’s many fallacies are worth debunking. When he inflicts the death of common sense about foreign policy, normally I say nothing, for I’m not a geopolitics expert. But I do know economics, and economics is where the GOP presidential nominee’s bromance with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is revealed as the most ridiculous thing even Trump says all day.
This of course comes from the Matt Lauer Foreign Policy Think-In, aka the most painful night I’ve spent thinking about the USS Intrepid, an aircraft-carrier-turned-museum in New York’s Hudson River, since chaperoning a Cub Scout overnight there with seven-year-olds. “He’s been a leader far more than our president has been a leader,” Trump said.
Putin, a leader? Let’s look at the charts.
As you can see, the ruble went from being worth 4.3 cents in 2008, and 3.6 cents as recently as 2011, to 1.3 cents this year. (It’s now around 1.5 cents, meaning 64 rubles will get you a buck USDRUB, -0.4650% ). That’s a 70% peak-to-trough drop. Since the dollar has also gained on the euro and yen, it’s only partly surprising. The U.S. is the best-led economy in the developed world, and Russia maybe the worst.
Mr. Trump, we’ll keep it simple enough for a picture — if your currency loses 70% of its value on your watch, as Putin’s has, you are neither “brilliant” nor a “strong leader.” Putin’s currency is galloping toward being wallpaper. And if the Tax Policy Center is right, your tax plan would do the same for the dollar. But who’s counting?
Here’s Russian GDP.
Russia’s economy shrank 3.7% in 2015, as oil and gas prices cratered, and another 1.8% in the first half of this year. (That happened because a certain Kenyan-Hawaiian strategic ninny defied his political base and encouraged fracking, so U.S. production zoomed, breaking OPEC’s market-manipulating ability). You don’t get caught unprepared for that if you are a brilliant, strong leader: It was in all the best papers, written in the best words. Instead, you combine a large, relatively highly educated population like Russia’s with the capital provided by oil money and diversify your economic base. I mean, unless Putin were to follow the strategic genius of Trump himself, whose big plan is to send troops to Iraq to steal oil.
Let’s see how that’s going…
Read: Trump’s $20,000 self-portrait purchase gives new meaning to art of the deal
Where does Russia’s GDP come from? It’s not good.
Russia gets just under 60% of GDP from services, which is a fair measure of how diversified its economy is. In the U.S., that number is 78%, in the U.K. 80%. Russia trails economic-advancement titans like Turkey, Venezuela and, narrowly, Zambia. This is one measure of how utterly Russia has failed to diversify an economy that gets two-thirds of its exports and more than 15% of the economy from oil and gas.Its third-biggest export is coal briquettes. In the U.S., it’s cars.
If we wanted to barbecue with Russian exports, we’d just use rubles.
The U.S. is what happens when enlightened leadership understands that an economy based on any one thing is weak. Russia? Not so much.
Naturally, Russian stock-market returns are as big as… a hand.
From 2011 through 2015, Russian stocks did basically nothing. They’re up this year because crude oil CLV6, -2.07% has blipped up to $46 a barrel. If you wanted an economy to sell short, however, you wouldn’t be wrong to begin with one whose government can’t balance its budget unless crude is at $80 a barrel.
Over five years, Russian stocks are up 34% MCX, -1.48% nearly all of it a dubious bubble this year. Russia’s economy basically craters if oil is $40 or less, and U.S. fracking costs are still falling and most of OPEC is still cheating on supply quotas, so the risk-reward is poor. By the way, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.41% was up 75% over five years through Friday.
All this means less military spending — and less military power.
To hear Trump tell it, Putin has pushed around presidents since George W. Bush and the invasion of Georgia. Trump has proposed a $450 billion military buildup to scare Putin, as well as drop more bombs on ISIS, a group already so pinned down that it’s reduced to begging for truck bombers on social media.
Trouble is, the U.S. military budget is nine times Russia’s — in fact, it’s bigger than Russia’s entire budget, meaning that Russia literally couldn’t come near matching U.S. military spending if it tried. The U.S. spends more than the next seven nations put together, in fact. Ergo, the U.S. topples governments, while Russia struggles to control eastern Ukraine.
Read: This is the reason Putin is even more dangerous than you thought
Why isn’t Russia a world power? Putin blew the winnings from $100 oil on the Sochi Winter Olympics (where it didn’t snow) and a whole lotta steroids for his manly, manly (especially the women) Olympians. When things went to number two, he invaded Ukraine, a bread-and-circuses trick to distract the populace borrowed from ancient Rome. John McCain had it right: Putin’s Russia is a gas station dressed as a superpower.
This is who Trump admires and would emulate. We’d say it’s deplorable, but Putin can’t afford baskets.
These 4 charts show why Trump is an idiot about Putin
@ThreeLetterAgency
Published: Sept 12, 2016 3:32 p.m. ET
Strong leaders don’t preside over economic collapses, Donald
By
TIMMULLANEY
WRITER
What a bromance!
One of the problems of political journalism circa 2016 is deciding which of Donald Trump’s many fallacies are worth debunking. When he inflicts the death of common sense about foreign policy, normally I say nothing, for I’m not a geopolitics expert. But I do know economics, and economics is where the GOP presidential nominee’s bromance with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is revealed as the most ridiculous thing even Trump says all day.
This of course comes from the Matt Lauer Foreign Policy Think-In, aka the most painful night I’ve spent thinking about the USS Intrepid, an aircraft-carrier-turned-museum in New York’s Hudson River, since chaperoning a Cub Scout overnight there with seven-year-olds. “He’s been a leader far more than our president has been a leader,” Trump said.
Putin, a leader? Let’s look at the charts.
As you can see, the ruble went from being worth 4.3 cents in 2008, and 3.6 cents as recently as 2011, to 1.3 cents this year. (It’s now around 1.5 cents, meaning 64 rubles will get you a buck USDRUB, -0.4650% ). That’s a 70% peak-to-trough drop. Since the dollar has also gained on the euro and yen, it’s only partly surprising. The U.S. is the best-led economy in the developed world, and Russia maybe the worst.
Mr. Trump, we’ll keep it simple enough for a picture — if your currency loses 70% of its value on your watch, as Putin’s has, you are neither “brilliant” nor a “strong leader.” Putin’s currency is galloping toward being wallpaper. And if the Tax Policy Center is right, your tax plan would do the same for the dollar. But who’s counting?
Here’s Russian GDP.
Russia’s economy shrank 3.7% in 2015, as oil and gas prices cratered, and another 1.8% in the first half of this year. (That happened because a certain Kenyan-Hawaiian strategic ninny defied his political base and encouraged fracking, so U.S. production zoomed, breaking OPEC’s market-manipulating ability). You don’t get caught unprepared for that if you are a brilliant, strong leader: It was in all the best papers, written in the best words. Instead, you combine a large, relatively highly educated population like Russia’s with the capital provided by oil money and diversify your economic base. I mean, unless Putin were to follow the strategic genius of Trump himself, whose big plan is to send troops to Iraq to steal oil.
Let’s see how that’s going…
Read: Trump’s $20,000 self-portrait purchase gives new meaning to art of the deal
Where does Russia’s GDP come from? It’s not good.
Russia gets just under 60% of GDP from services, which is a fair measure of how diversified its economy is. In the U.S., that number is 78%, in the U.K. 80%. Russia trails economic-advancement titans like Turkey, Venezuela and, narrowly, Zambia. This is one measure of how utterly Russia has failed to diversify an economy that gets two-thirds of its exports and more than 15% of the economy from oil and gas.Its third-biggest export is coal briquettes. In the U.S., it’s cars.
If we wanted to barbecue with Russian exports, we’d just use rubles.
The U.S. is what happens when enlightened leadership understands that an economy based on any one thing is weak. Russia? Not so much.
Naturally, Russian stock-market returns are as big as… a hand.
From 2011 through 2015, Russian stocks did basically nothing. They’re up this year because crude oil CLV6, -2.07% has blipped up to $46 a barrel. If you wanted an economy to sell short, however, you wouldn’t be wrong to begin with one whose government can’t balance its budget unless crude is at $80 a barrel.
Over five years, Russian stocks are up 34% MCX, -1.48% nearly all of it a dubious bubble this year. Russia’s economy basically craters if oil is $40 or less, and U.S. fracking costs are still falling and most of OPEC is still cheating on supply quotas, so the risk-reward is poor. By the way, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.41% was up 75% over five years through Friday.
All this means less military spending — and less military power.
To hear Trump tell it, Putin has pushed around presidents since George W. Bush and the invasion of Georgia. Trump has proposed a $450 billion military buildup to scare Putin, as well as drop more bombs on ISIS, a group already so pinned down that it’s reduced to begging for truck bombers on social media.
Trouble is, the U.S. military budget is nine times Russia’s — in fact, it’s bigger than Russia’s entire budget, meaning that Russia literally couldn’t come near matching U.S. military spending if it tried. The U.S. spends more than the next seven nations put together, in fact. Ergo, the U.S. topples governments, while Russia struggles to control eastern Ukraine.
Read: This is the reason Putin is even more dangerous than you thought
Why isn’t Russia a world power? Putin blew the winnings from $100 oil on the Sochi Winter Olympics (where it didn’t snow) and a whole lotta steroids for his manly, manly (especially the women) Olympians. When things went to number two, he invaded Ukraine, a bread-and-circuses trick to distract the populace borrowed from ancient Rome. John McCain had it right: Putin’s Russia is a gas station dressed as a superpower.
This is who Trump admires and would emulate. We’d say it’s deplorable, but Putin can’t afford baskets.
These 4 charts show why Trump is an idiot about Putin
@ThreeLetterAgency
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 12:01AM EDT
Russia: Failing to do Fair Share to Help Syrian Refugees
Aid, Resettlement, Asylum Procedures Fall Woefully Short
Languages
Available In
(Washington, DC) – Russia’s contribution to meeting the needs of refugees displaced by the Syrian conflict has been negligible, while its military involvement in the conflict has been significant, Human Rights Watch said today. Russia should use the upcoming summit meetings on the global refugee crisis to make commitments to share responsibility for refugees in line with its capacity.
The United Nations Refugee and Migration Summit will be held on September 19, 2016, followed by a Leaders’ Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis the next day.
Russia should also address serious shortcomings in its asylum system that are preventing most Syrian asylum seekers who have made it to Russian territory from receiving the protection they are entitled to under international law. Since 2011, Russia has not offered one resettlement place for Syrian refugees, and Russian officials have claimed the question of receiving Syrian refugees in Russia is “not on the agenda.”
“Russia is extensively involved in the Syrian conflict but has done virtually nothing to help the 11 million people who have lost their homes and livelihoods as a result,” said Bill Frelick, refugee rights program director at Human Rights Watch. “Russia has the resources to do much more, but it has yet to show any inclination to pull its weight.”
The charity Oxfam International has issued a “fair share analysis” for the past several years on Syria-related assistance. Its calculations, based on gross national income, among other factors, have assigned Russia approximately 13 percent of the humanitarian funding burden. Oxfam calculated Russia’s actual contributions to be 1 percent of its fair share, the lowest percentage of any of the 32 donor countries surveyed.
Human Rights Watch has extensively documented attacks carried out in the Syrian conflict with Russian support that have put civilians at risk. Russian forces have, in joint operations with Syrian government forces, attacked hospitals and schools, used internationally bannedcluster munitions and incendiary weapons, and otherwise carried out indiscriminate attacks. Russia announced in late July that Russia and Syria would open three humanitarian corridors out of eastern Aleppo, in northern Syria, to allow civilians to flee the besieged area. But Russia has shown minimal commitment to assisting civilians once they have been displaced.
Russian officials have rejected any responsibility to do more to help refugees, claiming that Russia is doing its part simply by “assisting the [Syrian] government in combating terrorist groups.” Russia contends that the burden of the Syrian refugee crisis should fall on those countries whose policies contributed to the war in Syria, without acknowledging that Russia has become a party to the conflict.
This resistance to participating in global responsibility-sharing is reflected in Russia’s contributions to aid efforts for Syrian refugees. Russia did not participate in the February 2016 London Donor Conference, which brought together 45 countries and secured $US 6 billion in pledges for 2016 and US$6.1 billion in pledges for 2017-2020. Instead, according to data published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Russia has contributed or pledged to contribute US$6.8 million to the UN funding appeals for the Syria crisis response – which amounts to 0.24 percent of the total of contributions so far, and 0.09 percent of the total requested by the UN for the year.
This low figure is consistent with Russia’s prior contributions to UN humanitarian appeals since 2012, which have averaged around 0.4 percent of the total received and 0.3 percent of the total requested. While Russia has in some years offered bilateral or other aid not directed specifically at the UN appeals, the amounts have ranged from US$860,000 to US$1 million – not enough to offset the disproportionately low contributions to those appeals themselves.
Oxfam International has calculated that a Russian fair share of resettlement based on the size of the country’s economy would be 33,536 places by the end of 2016. In response to the UN Refugee Agency’s Syrian refugee resettlement appeal earlier this year, Russia pledged no refugee resettlement places, but only to provide university scholarships for 300 Syrian students.
For Syrians who have managed to flee their country and make their way to Russian territory, significant flaws in the Russian asylum system have prevented the vast majority from receiving meaningful protection. Due to these deficiencies, in February, Human Rights Watch urged Norway to give full consideration to asylum seekers’ claims if they had travelled through Russia to reach Norway.
According to Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS), about 12,000 Syrians are in Russia, including those with valid student or work visas and those who were living in Russia before the conflict began. But as of April, only two Syrians had been granted refugee status since 2011, and about 1,300 had been granted temporary asylum – a lesser form of protection. About 2,000 reportedly have some other form of lawful residence, but thousands more are living in limbo.
“While the Russian government is happy to send its forces to participate in the conflict, when asked to step up its humanitarian response it rejects any responsibility for assisting vulnerable people who flee their homes in search of safety,” Frelick said. “Russia can and should increase its contributions and help to ensure that Syria’s displaced can live in dignity and peace.”
Russia: Failing to do Fair Share to Help Syrian Refugees
Russia: Failing to do Fair Share to Help Syrian Refugees
Aid, Resettlement, Asylum Procedures Fall Woefully Short
Languages
Available In
(Washington, DC) – Russia’s contribution to meeting the needs of refugees displaced by the Syrian conflict has been negligible, while its military involvement in the conflict has been significant, Human Rights Watch said today. Russia should use the upcoming summit meetings on the global refugee crisis to make commitments to share responsibility for refugees in line with its capacity.
The United Nations Refugee and Migration Summit will be held on September 19, 2016, followed by a Leaders’ Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis the next day.
Russia should also address serious shortcomings in its asylum system that are preventing most Syrian asylum seekers who have made it to Russian territory from receiving the protection they are entitled to under international law. Since 2011, Russia has not offered one resettlement place for Syrian refugees, and Russian officials have claimed the question of receiving Syrian refugees in Russia is “not on the agenda.”
“Russia is extensively involved in the Syrian conflict but has done virtually nothing to help the 11 million people who have lost their homes and livelihoods as a result,” said Bill Frelick, refugee rights program director at Human Rights Watch. “Russia has the resources to do much more, but it has yet to show any inclination to pull its weight.”
The charity Oxfam International has issued a “fair share analysis” for the past several years on Syria-related assistance. Its calculations, based on gross national income, among other factors, have assigned Russia approximately 13 percent of the humanitarian funding burden. Oxfam calculated Russia’s actual contributions to be 1 percent of its fair share, the lowest percentage of any of the 32 donor countries surveyed.
Human Rights Watch has extensively documented attacks carried out in the Syrian conflict with Russian support that have put civilians at risk. Russian forces have, in joint operations with Syrian government forces, attacked hospitals and schools, used internationally bannedcluster munitions and incendiary weapons, and otherwise carried out indiscriminate attacks. Russia announced in late July that Russia and Syria would open three humanitarian corridors out of eastern Aleppo, in northern Syria, to allow civilians to flee the besieged area. But Russia has shown minimal commitment to assisting civilians once they have been displaced.
Russian officials have rejected any responsibility to do more to help refugees, claiming that Russia is doing its part simply by “assisting the [Syrian] government in combating terrorist groups.” Russia contends that the burden of the Syrian refugee crisis should fall on those countries whose policies contributed to the war in Syria, without acknowledging that Russia has become a party to the conflict.
This resistance to participating in global responsibility-sharing is reflected in Russia’s contributions to aid efforts for Syrian refugees. Russia did not participate in the February 2016 London Donor Conference, which brought together 45 countries and secured $US 6 billion in pledges for 2016 and US$6.1 billion in pledges for 2017-2020. Instead, according to data published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Russia has contributed or pledged to contribute US$6.8 million to the UN funding appeals for the Syria crisis response – which amounts to 0.24 percent of the total of contributions so far, and 0.09 percent of the total requested by the UN for the year.
This low figure is consistent with Russia’s prior contributions to UN humanitarian appeals since 2012, which have averaged around 0.4 percent of the total received and 0.3 percent of the total requested. While Russia has in some years offered bilateral or other aid not directed specifically at the UN appeals, the amounts have ranged from US$860,000 to US$1 million – not enough to offset the disproportionately low contributions to those appeals themselves.
Oxfam International has calculated that a Russian fair share of resettlement based on the size of the country’s economy would be 33,536 places by the end of 2016. In response to the UN Refugee Agency’s Syrian refugee resettlement appeal earlier this year, Russia pledged no refugee resettlement places, but only to provide university scholarships for 300 Syrian students.
For Syrians who have managed to flee their country and make their way to Russian territory, significant flaws in the Russian asylum system have prevented the vast majority from receiving meaningful protection. Due to these deficiencies, in February, Human Rights Watch urged Norway to give full consideration to asylum seekers’ claims if they had travelled through Russia to reach Norway.
According to Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS), about 12,000 Syrians are in Russia, including those with valid student or work visas and those who were living in Russia before the conflict began. But as of April, only two Syrians had been granted refugee status since 2011, and about 1,300 had been granted temporary asylum – a lesser form of protection. About 2,000 reportedly have some other form of lawful residence, but thousands more are living in limbo.
“While the Russian government is happy to send its forces to participate in the conflict, when asked to step up its humanitarian response it rejects any responsibility for assisting vulnerable people who flee their homes in search of safety,” Frelick said. “Russia can and should increase its contributions and help to ensure that Syria’s displaced can live in dignity and peace.”
Russia: Failing to do Fair Share to Help Syrian Refugees